Whiskey and Wine
by NDV
Summary: A six part series: Sometimes these things just happen, even to the best of friends...
1. Author's Notes

Authors Notes: Yes, you have to read these!  
  
Okay, as you'll see at the top of each story for those that I know will skip this, this is a series within a series. The stories are to be read in any order, except for these three, which must be read as ordered or they won't flow correctly. If you'll click the author name, you'll see a listing of all stories, and you'll be able to find the others if you're, by some odd chance, interested in them. Here's the complete list:  
  
1. A Slow Sort of Hell  
2. Both of Them, Empty (I in the West Wing series)  
3. Sawijika  
4. Of Dreams and Fairy Tales (II in the West Wing series)  
5. Life, Like this  
6. Whiskey and Wine (III in the West Wing series)  
  
Whew, okay, hope that covers it all... I don't own the song (Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow) and I don't own the characters. So there, consider it all disclaimed. Hope you enjoy!  
  
Always,  
  
Liza 


	2. Both of Them, Empty

Okay, this is part of a series within a series, titled Whiskey and Wine. The whole thing is based on different stanzas, in consecutive order, from the song "Picture", by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. They go as follows: A Slow Sort of Hell; Both of Them, Empty; Sawijika; Of Dreams and Fairy Tales; Life, Like This; and Whiskey and Wine. For ones other than are posted here, ask [1]lizaausten@tri-countynet.net. This little series within the series is a set of three West Wing stories, all that could be read independently but might be a little confusing if you decide to do just that. Also, these three stories are Pre-White House, back when Toby was still married to Andi, say days before the divorce papers.  
  
Both of Them, Empty  
  
-I put your picture away,  
  
Sat down and cried today,  
  
I can't look at you,  
  
While I'm lying  
  
Next to her.-  
  
She was asleep, her body lying awkwardly sprawled across the mattress, flat on her back with her ankles dangling off the edge. Her hand had lain on his thigh, fingers never wandering, until she drifted off in a restless sleep he feared he would wake her from if his movements dared to alter.  
  
His fingers, close together and softly touching, circled her navel, and every few seconds the room was cast in a red glow as the neon vacancy sign blinked. She never stirred and he knew she was asleep without looking at her face, and so, he never did.  
  
He could not look at her face, because she was his best friend and at times, his only friend, and he had refused to listen to her rationale, though he'd known she was right, and he'd had sex with his best friend of eleven years because he was angry with his wife.  
  
He had devalued her, loved her, hated her, broken her, and she'd been crying with anticipation, pain, need, before he'd finally nudged her over the precipice, and she'd clung to him as if he were a parachute - torn.  
  
And she was asleep next to him now, and the neon lights washed over them in the tiny motel room, and in the half-light that bathed her, he could see tear tracks on her cheeks and the rise and fall of her chest, skin spattered with goose bumps, nipples still hard with the cold.  
  
---  
  
Somewhere across the room, between a dilapidated dresser and an equally rickety straight-backed chair, was his trousers, and in the back pocket was a well-worn picture of a woman with long red hair, arms twined around the neck of her husband, his brown hair visibly thinned in the moonlight.  
  
He'd carried it around for years, this picture, his graphic reminder of their honeymoon half a decade before. He had been thinner then, and she had been more beautiful, and somewhere between the first sign of laugh lines and the extra twenty pounds, they'd realized that their marriage was breaking apart just as their bodies were failing, betraying them as they'd betrayed each other.  
  
He thought, then, of sliding from the bed and the woman, another he'd betrayed and broken as he had his wife, and retrieving his picture and his life and begging both for forgiveness. But then, the light flickered and flashed again and he stilled the movement of his fingers as he listened to her breathe.  
  
She was so close and so real and so warm, her hair was red like his Andi's, and she laughed like his Andi. Then he thought that maybe, just maybe, if he closed his eyes and cleared his mind, and ignored the smell of whiskey and the scent of sex, then for just a moment, that one, she could be his Andi and he could be whoever she dreamt of as she slept beside him.  
  
Almost fondly, as he nuzzled his face into her neck, he wondered if maybe she was dreaming of him, and as he drifted off to sleep, he was left wondering of where his Andi was lying at that moment, and how his CJ had ended up beside him in the motel bed, rather, this particularly dirty and lumpy motel bed.  
  
He sighed against her skin one last time and her eyes drifted downward, and he never quite realized that while he'd been dreaming of Andi she'd been awake, never given the chance to dream of him as he'd wondered if she would.  
  
He dreamt of them both, then, and her hand caressed the thinning hair at his forehead as she would her dearest lover, and had he been awake, he would have realized that if she had been less guilt-ridden and afraid, she would have slept with him and dreamt of him as he dreamt of them. Not simply because she loved him, but because her blood burned with him, and she knew he would never relinquish his heart to yet another who could not do the same.  
  
---  
  
When he'd woken, he'd fully expected her to be gone. She had never been the type to face mistakes, always running from her demons as fast as her legs could carry her, he'd noticed. But instead, she lay curled on her side facing the now dim neon lights that were blending with the first rays of sunlight as they drifted in the east window of the musty hotel room.  
  
If I told her I loved her, he idly wondered, what would she say?  
  
Of course, that wasn't entirely true, because love implies that you can fully devote yourself to one person, come hell or high water, and he had much better chance of that with Andi, he knew, because she argued and she hated him most nights, but every morning she loved him despite it and for it, no matter the subject or level of emotion. His CJ was different, she fought with a passion that she couldn't break and couldn't tear away, for she felt things he thought no one should and he couldn't understand her, couldn't understand the emotions and the thought process, and it was that enigma, that mystery, that made him love her as he did.  
  
She was curled on her side much like the little girl he imagined she'd been, strawberry blond pigtails falling down her back as she stood a head taller than the children she played with. Innocent and trusting and beautiful and kind, and he could see her, as if he'd known her then. And to him, but not her, when he'd ran his hands over her body and ran his lips and his tongue over places he had never dreamed he'd reached, she was still very much the child he imagined but had never seen.  
  
It didn't take him long to pull his clothes on, the scent of sex lingering lightly on them as if it were the last attempt at keeping him there, away from his wife, the woman who would know where he had been and who he had been with. As if it were the claws that could hold him there, with her, the girl of strawberry blond locks and innocent eyes, and emotions too complicated for him to understand.  
  
She hadn't moved when he brushed a hand over her cheek and through her hair, a hand that quickly strayed to her side, running over her curves one last time before the final departure. She hadn't moved and hadn't turned her head to him, hadn't woken from her slumber or said goodbye. And, in a strange twisted sort of way, that grabbed at his heart and twisted, for he wanted some sort of acknowledgment, some sort of forgiveness, absolution from his sins and acceptance despite his faults. Faults he'd shown her in the bleakest hours of night when she'd covered him with her own body and brushed away his tears.  
  
And he'd walked away, ignoring the absence of sound and emotion, and he'd wondered if she'd even remember, as the whiskey had probably blurred her senses and heightened her arousal, and he wondered that if she did remember, the likelihood that she'd forgive him, that she'd forgive herself.  
  
He hadn't heard her when she turned to him, for he'd closed the door on the dirty motel room and on her, and he didn't hear her cry out his name or have the opportunity to kiss away her tears, because he was too angry and too desolate, too absorbed in his own guilt and prayers. Andi would not find out.  
  
And when she cried it was with bitterness for a lost childhood and a lost love, because despite his wife and his career and her life and her career, she loved him and knew it was wrong, and she'd never have him, for she was empty.  
  
Had he told her he loved her, she would have laughed, probably then cried though he never would have seen her tears.  
  
Had he told her he loved her, she would have known it was a lie, a desperate attempt at justification and appeasement. And she would have told him she loved him in return, for she did, far too much and far too readily.  
  
If he had told her he loved her, it wouldn't have been only a lie. Because he loved her, and he hated himself for it, because it was another emotion too complicated for him to understand, and the word was empty and desolate, just as the room he'd left her in.  
  
And she loved him, empty.  
  
References  
  
1. mailto:lizaausten@tri-countynet.net 


	3. Of Dreams and Fairy Tales

Okay, this is part of a series within a series. The whole thing is based on different stanzas, in consecutive order, from the song "Picture", by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, and is titled Whiskey and Wine. They go as follows: A Slow Sort of Hell; Both of Them, Empty; Sawijika; Of Dreams and Fairy Tales; Life, Like This; and Whiskey and Wine. For ones other than are posted here, ask [1]lizaausten@tri-countynet.net. This little series within the series is a set of three West Wing stories, all that could be read independently but might be a little confusing if you decide to do just that.  
  
Of Dreams and Fairy Tales  
  
-I put your picture away  
  
wonder where you've been  
  
I can't look at you  
  
While I'm lying next to him.  
  
I put your picture away  
  
Wonder where you've been  
  
I can't look at you  
  
While I'm lying next to him.  
  
For being impeccably educated and an excellent writer, she thought rather bitterly, he certainly wasn't very observant.  
  
She had watched him watching her, fingers gliding over smooth skin while he thought she was asleep. And she had watched him as he deliberated, eyes fixated at clothing on the floor and she knew he thought of Andi, his wife, and her picture. Guilt plagued him and she knew it because she knew him.  
  
But it would not be enough.  
  
And she had watched him as he slept, fingers hesitantly poised near his hair, his hand, his heart, but never quite giving in, never quite touching.  
  
She would not sleep that night, because she was afraid she'd miss his face, his expression, his emotions, or his words. Yet, she knew he would not smile, would not cry, wound not whisper things she longed to hear.  
  
She would not sleep that night, because she loved him, and for the first time, she understood what the words meant when they said that it was not enough. And the guilt nipped at her heels even as she watched him, sleeping untroubled and unmarred, and her memory held fast to the feel of his fingers and the taste of his skin, and she would say her Hail Mary's before breakfast.  
  
No, she would not sleep because she would dream, and she would dream of him, and somehow the dream never quite matched the reality. And before he walked out the door, she'd allow herself to sleep, dream, and remember, and she would not miss him when he was gone.  
  
---  
  
When she was a child, she read fairy tales and dreamt of her Prince Charming, clean-shaven, dark-haired, tall. He would be a devout Catholic and they would have beautiful children and a beautiful white house, and that would be her ending - her happily ever after that never was.  
  
Her mother died when she was eleven, and she told her father not to read her those same fairy tales, same stories, same lies. She was a big girl, then, and she did not need to be coddled, tucked in, or read to, and she never opened Cinderella again.  
  
She met Toby when she was seventeen, fresh out of high school and working as a volunteer on Senator Richardson's campaign, and he was rude and contemptuous, and all her Prince Charming would not have been. And yet, he smiled and he laughed, and she joined in because his mood was infectious and his charm reeled her in, and soon he was her best friend.  
  
Never more, never more.  
  
And he was Jewish and losing his hair as quickly as his faith, and his marriage was failing and he drank too much as a consolation prize, but there was no doubt in her mind that one day, one day, he would succeed instead of fail and he'd find himself in the White House.  
  
It was not the fairy tale she imagined.  
  
---  
  
It was not the fairy tale she imagined, but it would do, and she did not sleep until after he'd left her again, and she cried until nothing was left. Sometime in the night, she'd whispered, "I love you," and finally she knew that the happily ever after wasn't for her to have, but it was enough, because fairy tales were for dreamers and fate had dealt her a different kind of hand.  
  
And she would sleep, because when she woke up, he would not be there, but she was not a dreamer, and she expected as much.  
  
Prince Charming and his castle would wait another day, but Toby's White House...it would not. He would make it.  
  
And that was her dream.  
  
References  
  
1. mailto:lizaausten@tri-countynet.net 


	4. Whiskey and Wine

Okay, this is part of a series within a series, titled Whiskey and Wine. The whole thing is based on different stanzas, in consecutive order, from the song "Picture", by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. They go as follows: A Slow Sort of Hell; Both of Them, Empty; Sawijika; Of Dreams and Fairy Tales; Life, Like This; and Whiskey and Wine. For ones other than are posted here, ask [1]lizaausten@tri-countynet.net. This little series within the series is a set of three West Wing stories, all that could be read independently but might be a little confusing if you decide to do just that. Also, these three stories are Pre-White House, back when Toby was still married to Andi, say days before the divorce papers.  
  
It shouldn't have surprised her, really, when thirteen years after she'd first met him and three days after he'd left her, he'd arrived at a political mixer with his wife. She was, after all, the perfectly devoted wife when in her own element, with her own kind, and she feared nothing so much as losing herself. And the Senate run she was about to make was as close to herself as she had come, for Toby was an accident, a mistake that shouldn't have happened, a marriage that was no longer convenient. She did not hesitate to inform him of these facts when he troubled her, because she knew that, despite all he was and would never be - could never be - he had loved her once, and to Toby, that made all the difference.  
  
She, Claudia Jean Cregg, daughter of a public school principal and a Christian school teacher, sat at the bar alone drinking whiskey, watching Toby as he caught his wife's elbow and whispered something in her ear. He kissed her cheek and strode purposefully toward his best friend, or as she'd come to refer to herself `the woman who used to be Toby Ziegler's best friend before she stupidly fucked him senseless'.  
  
"Give me the bottle," she informed the bartender, gesturing at the bottle she held, and he raised an eyebrow before handing her the whiskey bottle, and she forced a fifty dollar bill into his hand before nodding in Toby's direction. "If I asked you why you weren't with Andi, would you say it's because you don't want to be, or because she doesn't want you to be?" His expression was enough of an answer for her, and she continued after a slow swallow in a sort of drawl, "I'd offer you wine, but I've had my fill," she tilted the bottle towards him. "Moving on, Toby," she whispered with eyes full of equal parts anger, desperation, and resoluteness. "I'm moving on."  
  
---  
  
She shouldn't have been surprised, she laughed to herself, when his lids lowered over his eyes, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets and began rocking back and forth on his heels. He looked like a little boy, dressed up for Sunday School, sheepish and saddened by some minuscule sin he'd committed for which he was afraid to ask for absolution, forgiveness. She watched him over the bottle as she righted it, bubbles sliding to the top. And she watched him as he sat.  
  
He'd been her best friend for so long that she wondered how they'd made it, how they'd made each other. And they had been as much a part in the molding and making of each other as they had themselves.  
  
---  
  
Somewhere along the way, she'd found time to attend catechism, and she'd become a Catholic. And somewhere along the way, she'd failed to attend Confession again and again, until finally she never went.  
  
She confessed to her cat instead, cried herself to sleep, and clutched her rosary as she did her Hail Mary's each morning, working toward a heaven she didn't believe in and a purgatory she didn't deserve.  
  
And she watched him as he pried one hand from the bottle and covered it with his as he held it over his heart.  
  
Forgiveness?  
  
"Don't," she thought she might've murmured, "Just don't. Don't say things you don't mean and don't promise me things you can't promise, and don't offer me perfection and beauty and your head on a platter, and all the things I don't deserve. And don't tell me I deserve the things I don't, because it's not enough and it can never be enough, because you have Andi and you have me and I have no one. No one, Toby. I don't even have you anymore, so don't tell me I deserve all the things I want because I can't hear it from you, because it's not enough and you can't be enough for me anymore, your words can't be enough. So just... don't say anything at all." And she'd torn her hand away as he fluttered his over his heart. She gulped down the whiskey as if it were air, then swallowed, blinking back the tears that burned at her eyes. "Just don't."  
  
And he didn't.  
  
References  
  
1. mailto:lizaausten@tri-countynet.net 


End file.
